Ballistic missiles which hit a friendly territory have become a significant threat and accordingly tremendous efforts have been invested to develop interception measures which facilitate interception of the oncoming missile at various flight stages such as Boost phase, Exo-atmospheric phase or Atmospheric stage (when the Ballistic missile threat re-enters the atmosphere). Various approaches have been offered and systems have been developed in order to intercept the Ballistic missiles in space, before they enter the atmosphere. This trend led to the development of counter measures (CM) in order to hinder the intercepting missiles to hit and destroy ballistic missiles in space. Amongst the numerous proposed CMs are decoys integrated with Multiple Reentry Vehicles (MRV) that are accommodated in the attacking ballistic missile, of which a few may be decoys. Thus, in a typical scenario, a ballistic missile may release, at certain stage in space, multiple objects, a few of which may be warheads or others such as decoys. In accordance with advanced counter measure solutions, the released objects are inflatable. This has a few inherent advantages from the standpoint of the ballistic missile. Thus, the main ballistic missile platform may accommodate a plurality of objects in a relatively small volume considering the fact that the inflatable objects are each stored in a wrapped form of a small dimension within the missile. The inflatable objects are inflated to a larger dimension only upon release from the ballistic missile's compartment to space. In addition, inflatable objects are, naturally, of relatively low weight, thereby facilitating accommodation of a plurality of them in the constrained scenario of limited payload that is often posed on a ballistic platform that is launched to space. The net effect is thus that a single ballistic missile can release in space a plurality of flying objects. Considering further that the inflatable objects (some or all of which are decoys) can be a priori designed to have shape and flight dynamics that resemble a true warhead, it readily arises that the interceptor missile which is designated to kill the threat by a direct hit is faced with a significant challenge to discern between the decoys and true warhead threats and focuses on tracking and homing onto the real threats rather than the decoys. It is inherently assumed that even if the interceptor employs multiple kill vehicles (MKV) it does not employ enough vehicles to target each and every inflatable object, whether a decoy or a real threat, and therefore the need to discern between a decoy and a threat is so important.
A system of this kind that releases multiple inflatable objects is, for instance, the known Minitment US system.
In the last few years the Russians have introduced an even more advanced CM system (e.g. the Russian Topol-M system), where a few of the inflatable objects accommodate, each, a longitudinal warhead having smaller dimensions than that of the hosting inflatable object. Thus, even if a vehicle, from among the MKVs of the interceptor, successfully hits an inflatable object of the kind specified and punches it, the longitudinal warhead concealed therein will remain intact and will continue to fly in its designated flight trajectory towards the friendly territory, which is obviously undesired.
The introduction of CM solutions of the kind specified may lead to shifting the efforts of hitting the target missile in space and focus again on the boost and atmospheric stages. Whilst the focus on the specified boost and re-entry stages may achieve the desired results of intercepting a target missile (or its RVs), it is still desired to have an effective intercepting system which will facilitate successful interception in the space of a target ballistic missile that employs a plurality of inflatable objects. As is well known, utilizing an efficient multi-layer solution designed to destroy ballistic missile threats at boost phase or in space or in atmosphere re-entry stage is important in order to reduce the prospect of target leakage to substantially zero, considering the dire consequences that may occur if a target missile, e.g. employing nuclear warhead, hits a friendly territory. Accordingly, there is a need in the art to provide for a Counter-Counter measure (CCM) system which is capable of overcoming CM solutions of the kind specified.
There is still further need in the art to employ a CCM system which facilitates successful kill of attacking missiles which utilize a plurality of inflatable objects that are released in space and in which a few or all of the inflatable objects conceal therein a warhead targeted towards a protected area.
There is still further need in the art to provide for a two phase CCM system which in a first phase will destroy in space the inflatable objects and in a second phase will destroy the flying warheads that were concealed in the inflatable objects.